Sgt. Demetrick Pennie, president of the Dallas Fallen Officer Foundation and a 17-year law enforcement veteran, filed the amended complaint in federal court Friday

By Marc Ramirez
The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS — A Dallas police sergeant has filed a federal lawsuit against Black Lives Matter leaders and others, blaming the movement for race riots and violence against police officers.

Sgt. Demetrick Pennie, president of the Dallas Fallen Officer Foundation and a 17-year law enforcement veteran, filed the amended complaint in federal court Friday. Conservative news site Breitbart published the lawsuit in an article that evening.

The listed defendants include not only those associated with the Black Lives Matter movement but public figures such as the Rev. Al Sharpton, Louis Farrahkan, George Soros, the New Black Panthers Party and even President Barack Obama and presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

According to the suit, the defendants "have repeatedly incited their supporters and others to engage in threats of and attacks to cause serious bodily injury or death upon police officers and other law enforcement persons of all races and ethnicities."

The suit accuses the defendants of inciting supporters and others "to engage in threats and attacks" against law enforcement officers around the country, including the July 7 murders of five Dallas officers by Micah Johnson after a Black Lives Matter demonstration.

Pennie is being represented by Larry Klayman of lobbying organization FreedomWatch.

"Sergeant Pennie and I feel duty-bound to put ourselves forward to seek an end to the incitement of violence against law enforcement which has already resulted in the death of five police officers in Dallas and the wounding of seven more, just in Texas alone," Breitbart quoted Klayman as saying in a release.

The 66-page complaint seeks damages of more than $500 million.

A Dallas Morning News editorial in July commended Pennie for inviting Cleveland Browns football star Isaiah Crowell to attend the funeral of one of the slain Dallas officers after Crowell briefly posted an anti-police image on social media in anger over the deaths of African-Americans in police-involved shootings nationwide.